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Tag: iran diplomacy

A second-term American president begins a diplomatic opening with a long-time adversary. Neoconservatives, citing the adversary’s interpretation of the agreement, suggest that diplomacy harms US interests and tips the balance of power, perhaps irreversibly, in favor of the other party. They cultivate a sense of growing threat and a weakening America. The president responds by suggesting that those opposed to diplomacy seem to believe war is inevitable, and that they fail to appreciate that diplomacy provides an opportunity to avoid such a war, benefiting US interests. His opponents counter by accusing him of appeasement and a lack of will, calling him a “useful idiot for [enemy] propaganda.”

The parallel, of course, is to the current garment-rending over the interim deal negotiated between the permanent 5 members of the UN Security Council plus Germany (P5+1) and Iran. There is absolutely no plausible interpretation of this deal that puts Iran with or closer to a nuclear weapon at the end of the six month period covered by the deal. At worst, it either puts 4-6 weeks onto the breakout time frame, or else Iran cheats and that cheating is detected, given the increased inspection schedules in the deal. As the New York Times’ account notes:

The interim agreement is, in effect, an elaborate pause button that provides a basis for pursuing a larger accord. It adds at least several weeks to the time Iran would need to acquire enough enriched uranium for a bomb if it decided to pursue a military option, but it can be reversed if either side changes its mind.

Under the interim deal, Iran agreed to stop enriching uranium beyond 5 percent, a level that is sufficient for energy production but not for a bomb. The country’s stockpile of uranium enriched to 20 percent, a step toward weapons-grade fuel, will be diluted or converted to oxide so that it cannot be readily prepared for military purposes.

Iran also agreed not to install any new centrifuges, start up any that were not already operating, or build new enrichment facilities. The agreement does not, however, require Iran to stop enriching uranium to a low level of 3.5 percent, or to dismantle any existing centrifuges.

Increasing Iran’s more highly enriched stockpile of uranium is a necessary condition for their acquisition of a nuclear bomb. This deal either will reduce that stockpile, or the deal is off. Those are the possible outcomes.*

Objections to this interim agreement are really hard to understand on the merits. Supporters of the current Menendez-Kirk bill, which would preemptively hang more sanctions over the Iranians’ heads, insist they support diplomacy, but given that the Iranians have said repeatedly they’ll walk if the bill passes—and given that if they do walk, there are going to be a lot more calls for military strikes—that’s tough to believe. Only two Senate Republicans have yet to sign onto the bill–Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky–both of whom had supported previous sanctions legislation but are exhibiting the conservative values of caution and prudence while diplomacy (and diminution of Iran’s stockpile of 20% enriched uranium) ensues.

Then again, it is also hard to understand on the merits the neoconservative objections to the INF treaty (and to diplomacy with the Soviet Union altogether), and that turned out okay. Here’s hoping cooler heads prevail. Again.

* Some observers have worried about a nuclear facility whose location we don’t know at present. This is indeed a concern, although it is the same concern with or without the nuclear deal.

The foreign policy news of the day is the apparent deal being reached in Geneva between Iran and the permanent five members of the UN Security Council plus Germany (P5+1). What’s particularly striking is the pre-spin being offered by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his ideological fellow-travelers in Washington.

To be clear: we do not know the precise terms of the deal being hammered out. The sketchy details that have been leaked make clear that both sides are taking small steps, as would be expected. Iran is not shuttering its nuclear enrichment program, or even freezing enrichment entirely, as the UN Security Council demanded it do in several resolutions. Similarly, the P5+1 is not normalizing economic relations with Iran, rescinding the spider web of sanctions that is strangling Iran.

None of this has stopped Iran hawks from asserting, without evidence, that the deal is a disaster for the world and a coup for Iran. Netanyahu was most succinct, labeling the deal—again, not having seen its terms—to be “the deal of the century” for Iran and a bad deal for the rest of the world.

Similarly, Danielle Pletka at AEI asks some pertinent questions about the exact terms of what was agreed to then declares, without answering them, that the deal is “lousy.” By her own one-sided accounting, what the Iranians will receive is “not clear” but she asserts, in spite of her admissions, that they will give “nothing.”

What’s happened here is that any gettable deal has been framed as “bad,” and the administration, while disagreeing with that framing, has agreed that “a bad deal is worse than no deal.” Netanyahu actually had a pretty solid debating point when he tried to scuttle the early feelers of this diplomatic opening by comparing a prospective deal to the deal brokered with North Korea. The parallels there are not ones that pro-diplomacy doves like very much, for good reason.

So let’s concede: this interim deal is not reliving old glories on the decks of the Missouri. It’s not a complete, irreversible end of the problem posed by Iran’s nuclear program. What hawkish observers fail to understand is that there is no such solution, through diplomacy, military strikes, or otherwise.

Thus the question was never whether this deal could provide Netanyahu’s desiderata: the shipping out of all enriched uranium, the destruction of Fordow and Arak, and an end to Iran’s pursuit of enrichment altogether. Nobody, perhaps even including Netanyahu thought that was possible. Given his various public statements, Netanyahu seemed to think any deal was a bad deal.

So yes, it’s not time to pop champagne corks and forget the world, nor time to throw a tantrum. A prospective interim deal would be a small, but very important, step in the right direction. Given the disaster that would be a war in Iran, we should take this small step and see if it can be built on. As Amos Yadlin, head of the Israel Institute for National Security Studies remarked, “There needs to be a scrutiny of the details before determining whether the ‘holy of holies’ was destroyed today.” One hopes Netanyahu, and hawks in Washington, will come to agree.